Another week, another court ruling throwing the Phoenix Coyotes situation into disarray: On Friday, it was the Arizona Court of Appeals ruling that Glendale residents should be allowed to vote in November on a referendum to overturn a sales tax increase that was approved in June. The sales tax hike, in turn, is to be used to help pay the Coyotes’ new owner Greg Jamison more than $200 million so that he can buy the team for $170 million. So, no sales tax hike, and Glendale needs to find another source of $200 million, which if it were so easy, it wouldn’t need the sales tax hike.
Anyway, Glendale has now appealed the appeals court ruling, and the NHL has extended the Coyotes’ current lease for another month, so it looks like all this is going to mean is more delays to the longest-running franchise sale in the history of the planet. At least Jamison now says he has enough investors in place to come up with the purchase price, but given the history of this deal, it’s hard to be sure of anything.
Where ya gonna get this much bang for your entertainment dollar? The Coyotes have really low ticket prices to go with a pretty good team, and – if you don’t live in Glendale – the soap opera is free. Let’s hope for three more years.
Neil- Your link about Jamison having enough investors is from 8/8 and probably no longer applies. Try TSN from 8/27 http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=403970 to see that Jamison has been given another one month extension to scrape together his (or anyone’s) pennies. While you’re there, check out how well negotiations are going between the NHL and the NHLPA regarding the upcoming season (lockout that is).
Any investors ready for this?
I *think* that TSN story is about the same extension as the one in this post — i.e., waiting for Glendale to scrape its pennies together, not for Jamison to scrape his. Though I agree that I’ll believe in Jamison’s pennies once I see them scraped.
PLEASE fold them already. The agony is overwhelming.
@ Marty
Or move them to Quebec City. A new arena will begin being constructed this fall AND they have an owner that is interested in having the NHL return to Quebec City. Unlike Kansas City (which has an arena) and Seattle (who has multiple owners that are interested), BUT not both of these things.
Quebec would be good. The only possible problem I see with a move out would be that little $200 million poison pill Glendale has in store should a move be made. Or did they do away with that already?
Dave:
If you live in a non NHL city the drama might be free, but if you live in any of the revenue sharing “payer” cities, a portion of each ticket you buy is being used to prop up a “business” in Glendale that loses nearly $40m on operations every year.
The thing I like best about the whole saga is that the NHL claimed Moyes’ losses were not legitimate and represented wholesale mismanagement of the franchise (both deliberate and through incompetence).
So… they’ve owned the club since May 2009… and their losses have been in the $30-36m range each year… it has been claimed that things might improve this year and the operating loss will be “$20-25m”. Wow, that’s some selling point…
Were they lying about Moyes (who is not a sympathetic figure in any sense)? Or are they just as incompetent as he was? Or, as most people would accept, is Glendale just not a legitimate market for the NHL?